


And I Forgive You (Even As You Choke Me That Way)

by th_esaurus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Collars, Dom/sub, Dom/sub-verse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you need help," Lecter said, every word meaningful, "I will know."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dom/sub-verse AU, loosely set around the events of the show, because Will Graham is such a sub and I needed to write it. Endless, endless thanks to halfhardtorock on this one. I have no idea how long it's going to end up being. 
> 
> (This fic is, of course, total fantasy, and in no way reflects real, safe D/s relationships.)

_i._

It was considered unseemly for a submissive to _need_ as much as Will Graham needed. 

He kept it tamped down, filtered and flattened inside himself as best he could: lived alone, took care of himself, kept his dogs in good health to prove he was capable. He hauled ass to work every day and bit his tongue for Jack Crawford, did his job, shivered and shook and sucked on his own fingers after to try and keep a level head. It worked sometimes. Katz had a neat trick of pinching the back of his neck with her short nails when she saw him trying to hide his distress behind his glasses. The twinge of pain was grounding, and he always gave her half a smile as thanks. It was, he supposed, expected that a sub would have more fragile emotions, a louder keen when upset, and Will Graham's job was, to put it mildly, upsetting. 

He thought he was doing okay. 

He really thought he was doing okay until, a week into the Minnesota Shrike case, Jack called him into the office, sat him down with a pointed glance, and asked him if he'd considered a working Dom. Will raised his head so sharply in shock that he met Jack's eyes; stuttered an apology and trained his frown on the floor. "You pulled me back into the field, Jack," he said, chewing on the words. "Are you telling me I'm not fit to do my job?"

Crawford steepled his fingers, and the square set of his shoulders made Will shrink in his chair by habit. "The issue here is _keeping_ you fit so you can _keep_ doing the job. I'm not trying to force anything on you Will, I'm asking you to consider it."

Will considered it. He woke up nightly with sweats and nightmares about flayed subs and butchered Doms, and the only way he could get back to sleep nowadays was with one hand on his cock and the other round his throat.

There was only so much pressure he could put on his own neck before survival instinct kicked in and forced him to breathe again. 

*

Dr. Lecter was recommended to Jack by Alana. A psychiatrist Dominant; like those weren't dime a dozen. Jack reminded Will constantly to play nice, that this was for his own benefit, and it raised Will's hackles until, by the time he met the man, he was simply bristling, and far too easy to read.

Lecter was - the best way Will could find to describe him - exquisitely upright. He stood easily tall, his suit more tailored than most, and he had a look of gentle disdain. It wasn't that he looked down his nose at the world, more that he was observing it from an objective distance. Will's arms were folded when he walked into the room; they jerked attentively to his side as Lecter looked him over. Will shuffled his feet together and tried to stand straight, his neck still crooked low. 

He'd done the same the first time he met Jack, when he was wet behind the ears and intimidated by the Dom they called the Guru. He thought he'd managed to drop the habit.

"Look up, please," Lecter said, softly European, and Will raised his head, switched his gaze to the ceiling. Lecter didn't touch him, but examined him quite calmly. Will wasn't sure what he was looking for: compatibility was never that much of an issue for these professional gigs. He seemed satisfied with whatever he found, and put his hand on the deep divot of Will's neck. Unlike so many unclaimed subs, Will never hid his shame behind polonecks and baggy sweaters: he went about his day with his two top buttons undone and his skin on show.

Still, he wasn't used to people not asking, just touching.

"And you've never been collared?" Lecter murmured, though he clearly knew the answer.

"I've always been able to take care of myself," Will replied shortly.

Lecter nodded. "The daily stresses of your job are not to be taken lightly. You can understand why Jack Crawford has asked me here."

"I understand it. I don't have to like it."

Lecter smiled at that. He had a smile as sharp as a razor, and his thumb was still on Will's neck. Perhaps to gauge his reaction, he squeezed, just a little; not too much to be socially uncouth in front of Jack. Just a little. Catalogued the hitch of Will's breath, the way his eyes closed involuntarily. Will didn't like seeing his idiosyncrasies filed away like that. But what was he supposed to do about it?

Lecter and Jack retired to discuss the finer terms of Will's submission, and Will was not invited into the conversation.

*

Lecter surprised Will at his Minnesota hotel room with breakfast. Will was sleep-moody and had jerked off twice in the night to fend off his bad dreams with the brief, blank respite of bliss. He hated coming in strange places, hated having to clean up straight away and keep himself quiet. But a poor coping mechanism was better than none at all.

He let Lecter into the room without fanfare, a show of compliance, but kept the curtains drawn. Lecter – his first name was Hannibal, though Will couldn't use it as it hadn't yet been offered to him – busied himself with setting the little fold out table, two mugs of warm tea from a thermos and some kind of sausage and egg. Will stood to the side, waiting. 

At work, Katz always remembered to give him permission to speak, first thing when they clocked in. When she was out the office, Will was often silent for an hour or two. It tended to slip people's minds.

So he waited.

Lecter sat, and began to eat, and looked Will over with a pleasant smile. "Strip, and you may join me," he said.

"--What?"

"Strip, please," Lecter said again, no tighter than the first time. 

Will was only in an old tee and his boxers, but he took his time about undressing. It was a humid day in a box of a room, and Will was less presentable than he'd have liked.

He didn't mind Lecter looking, though, as long as he wasn't expected to look back.

He folded his few clothes neatly, hesitated by the chair, figured the permission had been implicit enough, and took a seat. "You may eat," Lecter said, already half way through his meal. And as an after-thought: "If you find my cooking agreeable, I'd prefer you eat only what I give you, in my company."

"It's good," Will murmured. It was. There was a richness to the sausage that spoke of well-sourced meat and family-run smokehouses. The cheap chair was uncomfortable under him, and he tried not to fidget. 

"William," Lecter said abruptly, and Will nearly dropped his fork in his haste to put it down. He put his palms on the table, and felt stupid assuming such an attentive position at the breakfast table. He'd been unkept for so long, and hadn't had much time to adjust. 

"Will, you will never make me repeat myself again, do you understand?" Lecter told him. His voice was not, as such, a threat, but it made Will shiver and breathe through his mouth. He nodded, compliant, because he understood it well. 

They ate their breakfast and Lecter smiled, so pleased, when Will cleared his plate.

*

He'd been brought up to speed with the Shrike case, told that Will was having some trouble parsing together the pieces, and told as well that Will was dealing poorly with the violence of the thing. Will had overheard Jack saying as much. 

On the second day they were in Minnesota, a girl died. 

*

They drove up together, and Will's leg bounced in jitters the closer they got. Lecter's car was sleek and British-made, and filled with quiet arias that Will couldn't name but sounded vaguely familiar. He never much listened to music: found it too distracting, found the emotions too gaudy. It was easier on his mind when the words were in Italian.

Lecter stopped him with a firm hand on his thigh before they got out of the car. "You mustn't ask me for help," Lecter said, and Will bit his tongue, thought uselessly that if Lecter wasn't here to help him, then what was the point of him? Lecter seemed to see the dissent behind his lowered eyes and clenched lips, and he smiled, gripped Will's leg tightly. His hand felt strong. The kind of strength Will could imagine holding a limp body up with utter ease.

His feet hadn't felt like they'd touched solid ground for months.

"If you need help," Lecter said, every word meaningful, "I will know."

He put his other hand under Will's chin and tipped his face up, and stole from him the briefest eye contact. And then leant over him and opened the car door, and motioned Will to leave.

It was somewhat of a culture shock. The Bureau attracted Doms by its very nature, and while some had always disdained to talk to Will directly, it was as though he'd become invisible. Every order and question for him was channeled through Lecter, and Lecter answered without consultation, directed Will about with nods and gestures. Price was the only other submissive on the team, and in a different league to Will – long-term claimed, collared, and married to his Domme – and he shied back from Lecter's presence. By habit, Will wanted to do the same, but Lecter kept him close with a click of his tongue whenever he strayed. 

He'd stand and bristle and get lost in his low anger, and then Lecter would tsk and Will would trot back into place beside him, utterly thoughtless. The only thing that had ever cleared his mind so suddenly was an orgasm, hard-won at his own fingertips.

Jack handed Lecter a pair of surgical gloves, and Lecter coolly took Will by the wrist, slipped the gloves over his hands briskly, and nodded that he was free to stray. Will very nearly thanked him; bit his tongue at the last second.

*

The dead girl was like all the others, pretty and young and not quite mature enough to fall on either side of the coin but – they all sensed it in her pale skin and the curves of her neck and shoulders – just on the cusp of submissiveness. She was draped beautifully over the freshly severed head of a stag, and impressive creature and such an overt symbol of Dominance that Will wanted to laugh shakily at the obviousness of it all.

This wasn't the Shrike. This wasn't the Shrike, and when he said it to Jack Crawford, Jack frowned and told him, glancing aside at Lecter, to do his damn job. He'd never been quite as short with Will before. 

Will took off his glasses from where the bridge of his nose was starting, just slightly, to sweat, and closed his eyes.

Crouched and waiting for him in the darkness with its hand bloodied and outstretched, he saw death. He had seen it so often, but never acclimatized to it, never managed to habitualise it – the last two cases he'd been on had seen him lose four kilograms, begin to medicate his insomnia, and seek out the rushing silence of sex so much that he chafed with it. He'd tied a boat rope to one corner of his bed and used it as a makeshift leash on himself whenever he jerked awake from his nightmares. 

He'd never had any means to keep himself afloat out in public. Had made do, once, on his knees with Zeller's dick between his lips because it was unseemly to jerk off in the bathroom stalls by himself and not quite so bad to service a Dom in the line of duty. But Zeller had just sworn and jerked his hips and hadn't buried his hand in Will's hair, so Will never resorted to it again.

Though his eyes were closed and his mind half way between himself and a stranger, a killer; he felt like he could see Lecter watching him. 

*

When Will returned to the real world, he was on the ground, and his lips were wet with spit, and mud was caked under his fingernails, and he thought the earth was quaking beneath him but no, no, it was him, just his own body, shaking itself sick. 

Jack Crawford was calling distantly for space around him, to give him some air, but he had too much of that out here in the open. Every breath he sucked in smelled like the dead girl, like red meat and offal, and he could hear the scrabble of the birds picking her corpse apart, the flies fighting for leftovers. 

It wasn't the Shrike, though he'd tried so hard to see him. All he'd seen was some two-headed chimera, the Shrike and his shadow intertwined, black-winged and smooth-horned and eating the insides of the girl; not quite yet dead.

Will balked, retched. Nothing came up.

He heard Lecter's stride before he saw him. His impeccable shoes, his long legs, just the bottom of his coat. Will didn't have enough control of his body to turn and look up at him.

Lecter didn't say his name. He didn't coax him back into himself. That wasn't the point. 

Instead, he put his heavy hand on the back of Will's neck, and another on the small of his back, and pushed him down until his was fully prostrate. Not a sprawling mess on the ground anymore, but kneeling, the muscle memory of obedience taking over. Will collected his limbs underneath him, and gradually the smell of the wet earth became stronger than the stench of the corpse. Lecter didn't soothe him, didn't circle a thumb against his skin. Instead, he held on, unyielding.

When he let Will up, it wasn't far. He slid his palm up, grabbed a thick handful of Will's damp curls and pulled him upright, still on his knees. He pressed Will's head against his crotch, and Will mouthed there blindly for a moment, suddenly urgent. Lecter was not hard and did nothing more than let Will make promises with his lips, but that was enough.

He couldn't see the Shrike, but he could do this. He could do this, if it was asked of him. He whispered told Lecter that, all of it, over and over, under his whimpering breath.

It was minutes or more before Lecter's grip slackened and he helped Will to his feet. They passed Jack on the way to the car, and Lecter told him calmly, "It isn't your Shrike. He's quite certain."

And Jack Crawford didn't question it a second time.

*

Will expected to be dropped unceremoniously back at his hotel, but Lecter missed the turning, did not correct his mistake, and drove on through the other side of town. Will didn't feel it was his place to question Lecter's decisions, then frowned at the thought. Still, he kept it to himself. His ethereal calm had worn thin on the drive, and his vision swam with punctured skin and dried blood on antlers. 

Lecter parked his car in the half-full parking lot of a hotel considerably more expensive than Will's functional room. It was built to look like a country house, fooled no-one, and Lecter walked ahead of Will the whole way up to his room. The doorman greeted Lecter with a smile and a sir, and all the collared porters stopped and lowered their heads as he passed, but not a single one of them spared Will a glance.

The room itself was cloth-draped – over the balcony French doors, the four-poster bed, decorative sheets adorning the end of the mattress, white towels folded over the wide bath. Pale gold walls, fresh daffodils on the writing desk where Lecter dropped his keycard, laid his coat and jacket. He was wearing yellow and grey, as though the room had inspired him that morning. 

Will had only brought one shirt with him to Minnesota. 

"Tell me about your murderer," Lecter said, as he poured them wine from a bottle already chilling on the bedside table, and Will realized they were still working. Lecter was still on the job. After all, why else would he bring Will here?

They talked for an hour about the Shrike, and it exhausted Will. This entire case exhausted him. It made him want to curl in on himself, away from the harshness of the world; to simply lie and be soothed and whispered to, to be told that things were going to be okay. Just for once. 

He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, and Lecter told him to leave them off. "Do you have a routine that helps you sleep?" he asked abruptly. 

Will hesitated, then nodded. "I shower usually, a hot shower."

"Do you masturbate?"

"I—yeah."

"Alone or with aids?"

Will dipped his head, shrugged his shoulders together and looked away. 

"The latter, then. We can find suitable alternative." Lecter stood, smoothed down the front of his waistcoat. He was older than Will but clearly kept himself better – the whole of him looked as strong as his hands, and Will wondered if he stayed fit and able with a submissive at home. The thought was unsavory to him and brought another one of those obvious frowns to his face. 

"Undress, please," Lecter said coolly. "And I shall run you a bath. It will do better than a shower, I assure you."

Will didn't make him repeat himself.

It felt like there was a little more ceremony to it, this time around. Having to unbuckle his belt, slide it through the waistband of his jeans; unzip his fly; unbutton his shirt from bottom to top. His limbs were tired from the day's work, his hair clammy from sweating through his panic. He suspected he wasn't much to look at, but Lecter looked anyway. Set the bath running, then settled himself on the edge of the bed, his legs crossed, and watched Will slowly strip.

"On your knees," he said, when Will was bare. He didn't bark it like an order. He had the confidence to know a simple request would be just as easily obeyed. Will let out a long, low breath and dropped to his knees. The carpet was soft underneath him. Lecter tapped the edge of the bed between his legs, clucked his tongue, and Will shuffled forward to fill the space, somewhat inelegantly. He wasn't a sub who'd perfected that feline grace on the floor, and there was nothing lion-like about the rise and fall of his shoulderblades when he crawled. Lecter didn't chastise him for it. Just let Will lay his head against the inside of his thigh.

"You will not think about your murderers when you're with me," Lecter said firmly, and stroked his thumb down the rough line of Will's jaw. "I'm a very jealous man, you see."

Will pressed his nose and mouth against the cloth of Lecter's pressed trousers, just like he had out in the field, and it calmed him to smell the skin underneath. Calmed him though did not empty him of his troubles until Lecter's soft touch wended its way into his hair and gripped, pulled just a little tighter than could ever be comfortable. Will didn't hiss through the pain, but clenched his teeth, shut his eyes to it, let Lecter tug there intermittentely. Every sharp pull washed the canvas of his mind cleaner, the pictures there suddenly so much less permanent, until everything was bleached white and pure. 

It was a shock to Will, how fast he gave into it. Under his own ministrations, it could take until he was on the very cusp of his orgasm to forget everything so fully. 

Lecter bent down and Will wasn't sure what he should do, so he let his body go loose and malleable; and Lecter tucked an arm under his bent up knees, another wrapped around his shoulders, and he picked Will up with only the vaguest show of effort. Will flushed red from his temple down to his collarbone, his zen state immediately fractured with shame and the want to protest.

"I'm not undermining you," Lecter murmured, very close to his ear. "I want every part of you. If you have fear in you, I want to take that. If you have panic, I want to take that. If you have it in you to walk, then that is mine as well."

Will breathed out another one of those deep sighs, nodded against Lecter's shoulder, and let himself be carried to the bathroom; to be lowered – and this time he did let out a hiss at the heat – into the still-running water. 

He couldn't remember the last time he'd bathed. He couldn't ever remember it like this, pleasantly flowery and surrounded by porcelain. Maybe tubs when he was younger, bathwater already once used by his dad. It was opulent in a way that made Will uncomfortable, but if nothing else, he liked seeing Lecter surrounded by elegance that reflected him so neatly.

He liked seeing Lecter. Liked watching him. It was an unwise sort of realization, for a sub with a professional Dom. But Will let it come upon him, and mulled over it, and filed it away for pondering later. He'd think about it later.

Lecter turned off the taps once he was covered up to his chest, but didn't leave. Instead he rolled up his shirtsleeves and took down a bottle of soap from the bathside shelf – full sized, none of these travel shampoos and rock-hard bars of soap Will was used to scrubbing with as he passed through states and investigations. He lathered up his hands like a musician putting resin on a bow, and reached into the water to pull Will's right leg up by the ankle.

It wasn't sensual, not really, but methodical, precise, and made Will feel more thoroughly clean than he had in perhaps years. It felt like Lecter was cleansing the collected layers of blood and grime from every murder he'd witnessed in his mind, despite all the desperate showers in between. He made to speak, but stopped the words in his throat, unsure if he was allowed. Lecter looked at him but said nothing, so Will slumped back against the bathtub, silent, and closed his eyes, and let himself be washed all over.

"Stand up," Lecter murmured, after he had finished Will's back and neck, and Will got to his feet, tried not to slosh the water around too much, and spread his legs without thinking when Lecter tapped him on the thigh. Lecter's hands scrubbed the curve of his ass, the harder muscle where it met his legs, and the soft dip between. Will inhaled through his nose when Lecter's hands reached his cock, and he wasn't sure whether it would offend Lecter if he got hard.

It wasn't like he could do much to stop it. The last time he'd been touched was at the standard FBI medical; they always had to check subs weren't—impaired. That they were intact. It wasn't unheard of. 

Will's thoughts were usually bullet-swift and sharp as split glass, but they seemed cloudy tonight. Days after work in the field were spent silently fretting, turning over the murders in his mind, trying to decipher them. He worried dimly that this lack of immediate analysis would make the torment of experiencing the crime utterly worthless; but insight usually came days later anyway. His thoughts weren't being erased by Lecter's handiwork, just postponed. 

"You're thinking," Lecter said smoothly. "I want you to stop."

"You make it sound so easy," Will murmured, still standing, his eyes still closed.

That annoyed Lecter. The disobedience of Will's words, or maybe just his lack of faith. Lecter grabbed him by his wet curls and yanked, pulling him out of the bathtub, out of the bathroom, and into the suite, dripping and naked onto the carpet. He put both hands around Will's neck for the first time since they'd met, and he began to squeeze. The pressure was not painful. Will's worries were as hard to hold onto as his breath.

"If I say it's easy," he told Will, standing so tall, "then it is easy."

Lecter let go, and Will dropped to his knees unbidden, still weak from being made so malleable. Almost in a fit, he kissed Lecter's ankle, lifted the cloth of his trousers and kissed the skin there, the bone underneath. It was the nearest part of him and Will needed to show his gratitude, somehow. He just needed to.

Lecter had strangled the breath out of Will's lungs, and the remnants of panic out of his chest, until all that was left was quiet and calm and fading. 

He was right. It was going to be so, so easy from here on out.


	2. Chapter 2

_ii._

Will woke naked, curled at the foot of an empty four-poster bed. A soft blanket – not just decorative, he supposed – had been draped across his prone body sometime in the night. He felt clean, well-rested, clear-minded and hungry, and the clarity of it all was blinding.

He wondered if this was how people who didn't stare at dead bodies five days a week woke up.

He took some time to pad about the suite. He was alone, and wasn't sure if he should dress or—stay ready. Wasn't sure if they were still on the clock, now. Wasn't entirely sure what Lecter expected of him at all.

He didn't dress.

Will sat cross-legged on the carpet, and took his case notes out of his satchel. There was a writing desk, but he felt comfortable closer to the ground. He sifted through a pile of polaroids, the first girl found to the last, mounted on her corvine plinth. It was like looking at jumble of puzzle pieces, one from an entirely different set than the rest. Will wanted to laugh with the obviousness of it. He hadn't seen the Shrike yesterday because he wasn't there, but now—now, in the negative space between the final girl's limbs and the dead stag's horns, he could see everything. He could see the Shrike's passion, his love, his need, because all of those things were utterly vacant from this final scene. Cold, calculated, almost graphical in its lines and shapes. That's all this was.

The sound of the door opening startled him. Will stumbled to his feet, hated that he wasn't used to being shocked to attention; it made him clumsy. Lecter came into the room backwards, carrying a tray of fresh fruit, cold meat and bread, two plates and a cafetiere. Will thought it strange to wait on himself in a hotel, and it must've shown on his open face, as Lecter said mildly, "I like to prepare my own food. The staff kindly let me use their kitchen while you were dozing."

"I was fast asleep," Will admitted, bit his tongue at the sharp look Lecter shot him. Speaking out of turn, it seemed, was Lecter's personal peeve.

"And your nightmares?" Lecter continued, nodding this time to let Will know he could answer.

"Subdued," Will said, swallowing.

Lecter piled up two plates for their breakfast, then paused pointedly before he set them on the table. He leant down, and put one plate on the carpet, by the legs of the chair, and then sat himself languidly, crossed his legs, and began to eat.

It wasn't like Will had never eaten dinner on the floor with his dogs before. He found their presence comforting, their simplicity soothing, and on stressful nights it was easier to sit with his back against the armchair and a plate and fork in his hands, letting them snuffle and bustle around him.

It was just that nobody had ever _told_ him to eat like a dog until now.

He settled back on his haunches, one foot tucked under the other for comfort, and tried not to slouch. Will had never been one for all the attentive facade of submitting, but something about Lecter's elegance made him want to try harder. His palms were sweating and he rubbed them covertly on the carpet before he ate. Lecter was watching him, that much was obvious, though Will didn't turn to look. 

Lecter wasn't an amateur cook. Even a simple breakfast was polished to perfection: Moroccan cinnamon sprinkled on the orange slices, herb butter on the slices of artisan bread, Spanish and Italian sausages, no cheap deli counter slabs. He'd bristled, at first, at the restriction to his eating habits, but Will found he didn't much mind already. He certainly never fed himself this well - usually toasted two slices of bread and only ate half of one, too sick with the night to really eat.

Two bites in, and Lecter made a low noise of displeasure. "This will never do," he said, almost to himself, and Will hesitated. It was the lack of surety that stung him more than anything. He'd never had to please anyone but himself, and never particularly cared to; but all the coping mechanisms he'd carefully crafted were slipping out of his hands, and he still wasn't sure if Lecter was waiting below him to catch them, or if he was simply off to the side, quietly observing Will falling apart.

Lecter picked the plate up from the floor. He turned, bade Will to do the same, and when they were facing each other, Will risked a glance up at Lecter's face. He seemed so passive, but not pitying. Curious more than anything. As though Will were a work of modern art he couldn't quite puzzle out the meaning of. 

Slowly, Lecter began to feed him, by hand, piece by piece. Will realised, with a sorry sort of jolt, that he had been expected to eat without his fingers. Just his mouth, low to the ground. But they made the compromise; Will knew of Doms who wouldn't.

Will Graham had always avoided owing anyone. Being kept, he thought, being collared meant an obligation, a debt of pleasure, and he feared failure as much as any man with thick skin and easily torn muscles underneath. If he fucked himself on his rough fingers and never came, well, it was only his own disappointment to content with. 

They lingered over breakfast, Lecter pausing every now and then to take a bite of his own, then turning his attention back to Will. Sometimes, between mouthfuls, while Will was chewing thoughtfully, he would run his hand through Will's soft curls, across the pale canvas of his neck and collarbone; and in return, Will dipped forward, suckled on Lecter's little finger instead of taking his food. It didn't feel like an obligation. He wasn't sure what it felt like at all.

Lecter pulled his hand back and struck Will across the mouth. It wasn't hard, maybe no more painful than a salty wind.

"Jesus," he stuttered, and put the back of his palm to his lips to check for blood. There was nothing, of course. He had acted out of turn, spoken out of turn now too, and Lecter frowned, stood abruptly, collected their plates mid-meal and sharply told Will to dress. It took Will a moment to stand; took him a long moment to stand and get his clothes and fairly flee to the bathroom.

It was a sort of dank shame he felt more than anything, cavernous and cold. Fear, he was used to; hot panic, he was used to, and he could've taken either of those and lost them, if briefly, in a fierce shower with brisk, harried strokes. But this felt lingering and sallow, and the thought of Lecter's disdain, just from trite mistakes, pained him more than the dread of spending another day surrounded by corpses.

He cleaned his teeth and avoided his own gaze in the bathroom mirror and thought about that. 

Thought bitterly how good Lecter was at his job.

Will watched his reflection warily, and touched the hollow dip at the base of his neck with two fingers; and it felt so bare.

*

Katz's steady hand and beady eyes, a curving sliver of cut metal, a missing address, and Will Graham's spectacular mind brought them to the home of the Minnesota Shrike.

The thing played out badly. 

*

Lecter escorted him to the construction site, made unnecessary small talk about how intriguing it was to see behind the curtain of the FBI. He was, he said, not a television-watcher – his tastes flew higher - and had none of the common misconceptions about detective work, and it was nice for Will not to have to fend off the usual layman's questions, but he wanted silence to think. Lecter sensed it, knew it, clearly, and would not let him have it; Will needed to keep himself together for the hunt.

The secretary at the construction site was a pushy Domme who let Lecter rifle through the filing cabinets – he had to hand everything off to Will, Will dictating to him what might be suspicious, what he needed to look out for, while the secretary chatted with no concern for Will's earshot to her friend on the telephone, complaining about these uppity subs who had no sense of place.

Garrett Jacob Hobbs' papers had no address.

"He knew how to behave," the woman told Lecter, nodding at the file. "A properly quiet one, knew not to look his betters in the eye. Kept himself to himself."

"Did he have a daughter?" Will asked, and Lecter relayed the question. She shrugged, nodded, shrugged again. "Was—was she old enough to know her status?" A more aggressive shrug at that one.

Lecter was silent on the drive to Bloomington. Will took it as explicit permission to lose himself in his work.

He cleared his throat after twenty minutes and asked Lecter to drive a little faster.

Before they stepped out the car, Lecter put a solid hand on Will's neck. Will was grateful for it: he was floating high in the headspace of the Shrike, and felt too close to the sun. The house in front of them was innocuous, but Will felt a dreadful heat emanating from it. Lecter's hand was cooling, his grip solid as ever.

It was not there to reassure Will, but to centre him. The Shrike could not claim Will if he was already owned.

The wife was dying by the time Will's feet hit the front porch. 

He put his hands on her neck and chest, but there was nothing to be done. Her blood was like lava, and Will reared back from it as though scalded, and his hands were red, and sweat pricked at once on the back of his neck.

His hands were too slippery to be steady on his gun, and even that felt like a poor excuse. They were trembling like heat haze on a wildfire. 

Garret Jacob Hobbs held his daughter by the waist. He was whispering in her ear, things Will couldn't hear but knew anyway. The blade of his kitchen knife was angled against her neck, her head tipped back to veer away from it, and that only gave him better access. The tip pressed just above the loose, thin collar around her neck. Will clocked several things: that the girl was pretty and the collar prettier; that she was too young to be collared; and that she had no scent of a sub about her, not like the other girls. Not like all those other dead girls.

Hobbs slit his daughter's throat, and Will shot him, eight times or more. 

The girl managed not to die. Nobody could say as much for Hobbs. 

Will couldn't take the collar off her throat to quell the bleeding. He could swear and shake but he couldn't help her. Lecter stepped in and did it anyway. He moved Will's wild fingers away with a gentle firmness, unbuckled the collar – impossible to tell its real colour now, underneath the red – and wrapped his hand around her throat until she could breathe right.

Will thought madly that when the story got out, people would tut over Lecter's handling of the thing. He should not have taken off her collar. Not even to save her life. Some people would say.

*

It took a minute to get to him. Even in the outside air, he couldn't cool down, his sweat mingling with the sheen of blood on his cheeks and chest. He watched Hannibal escort the girl to the ambulance, his hand on her hand and her collar hidden in his breast pocket. Will felt a sort of awful jealousy in his stomach, and it was inappropriate, and it made him retch on the front lawn.

He went to his knees, because it felt safer, low to the ground, and he waited there for Lecter. 

Will's head was a bloodied mess. The dead Shrike Hobbs, and the strange daughter, and three people's lives lost or changed under Will's beating pulse; Lecter had been calm for him through it, but he hadn't been able to cling on. He felt drowned, watching a buoy bob just out of reach, his limbs too tired to grasp it. 

There was so much of Hobbs that he still didn't know. 

Lecter's hands pulled him bodily upright, though not to his feet. Will's hair was matted and wet with bodies, but Lecter reached in roughly, ran his palms against Will's crown like he was a dog that needed settling. As though he could dispel all thoughts of Hobbs from Will's mind by force. 

He could certainly try.

Will had been dimly aware of Jack Crawford, Beverly Katz, Price and Zeller, all present and watching him begin to break, but he forgot it now. Lecter's fingers anaesthetized him, and Will's lips fell slack, and he pressed his cheek against Lecter's thigh again. Jesus, he needed to fill his mouth. His arms were too soft and useless to cope with Lecter's fly; instead he turned his face and took Lecter's belt between his teeth. He could go no further than that. Just licked and bit at the leather, and knew it was expensive, and knew Lecter should slap him for it, as he had done for less, and knew that he did not care in this instant. Not one bit.

Lecter let him lap at it for a time. His hand stilled in Will's hair. He parted his legs a little, gave Will the smooth toe of his shoe to rut against. Will was scared of coming in his jeans—no, no, not scared, simply aware of the possibility.

"Will," Lecter said, soft and stern and somewhere above him. "That's enough now."

Will felt like he belonged at Lecter's feet. If someone had asked him Hobbs' first name, in this moment, he would've struggled to recall.

In a single, smooth motion, Lecter unbuckled his belt and slid it free. Will thought of his hands on the Hobbs girl's neck, and didn't feel jealousy. He seemed to see the scene play backwards in his mind: Lecter placidly clasping the collar around her neck as life poured into her. 

Will could imagine himself in place of the girl. He made a low keening and his hips bucked up against Lecter's shin, and he rutted there, breathless and animal. Lecter moved swiftly. He got the belt around Will's neck with little effort, though had to makeshift a knot. It was crafted for waists, not thin necks. The knot rubbed against Will's adam's apple; Will felt some strength in his arms, and went at his erection with the heel of his palm, still jerked up against Lecter's leg. 

"William," Lecter said, like a whipcrack. He pulled sharp on the long end of the belt, like a leash. Will, at the same time, came. 

Always before his mind had been so blank when he hit that giddy climax. Now he saw something, one thing only. He saw Hannibal Lecter.

*

He became aware of his surroundings slowly, like painting in watercolour. The world was entirely upright, and Will felt a calm normality. Lecter was at his side, talking to Jack Crawford. He had the belt wrapped a few times in his fist. Will touched at his neck absently to make sure it was really gone.

He sighed out carefully, like that single breath could break the fragile sanity of the air around him. 

Dimly, he heard Jack laughing, a skeptical sort of laugh. "We should've got you on this job much earlier," he was saying to Lecter. "You'll have him collared and leashed within days at this rate."

"Whatever Will needs," Lecter replied politely, suddenly all business.

Will frowned. Cracks appeared in his stability, and behind them, like broken mirror shards, he still saw Lecter, gently hushing him. 

He took a few breaths, and they stayed steady. 

*

It was a long, dull drive back to Quantico. 

Will watched the world pass them by. Nature always had a clean white noise to it, too much history and unhappiness for Will to try and decipher. He felt the same curious silence when he looked at Lecter, as though there were too much of the man to be understood beneath his skin.

Will felt ill and tired. He wanted the easy sleep that came at the end of Lecter's bed. But they were heading back to the Bureau to debrief, and Will suspected Lecter would not hang around for him. He wanted his dogs, and he wanted the familiarity of his little house at Wolf Trap, but Christ, he wanted Lecter there. To curl up at his feet among the dogs by the firelight while Lecter fed him scraps from his dinner plate. 

He spoke only once on the journey, and it was without permission. "Do I—" Will licked his dry lips, started again. "Do I please you, Dr. Lecter?"

Lecter didn't answer him. Will nodded to himself; his ignorance was being mirrored as punishment.

But after a time, looking at the straight, dark road ahead, Lecter said carefully, "In other circumstances, I believe we might have been great friends."

And he gave Will nothing more than that, for now.


End file.
